BC Task Force Letter to BRA: Need for "Substantial Modifications" in BC Master Plan

The BC Task Force released their letter dated September 5, 2008 addressed to the Boston Redevelopment Authority on Boston College's revised Institutional Master Plan. You can find it at the AllstonBrighton2006 (AB2006) Google Group.

The Boston Globe's boston.com reports on the letter:

A community task force reviewing Boston College's proposed expansion is urging city officials to seek "substantial modifications" to the plan and require a 10-year moratorium on expansion into the Allston-Brighton neighborhood.

In a strongly worded 17-page letter received Monday, the Allston-Brighton advisory group cited a range of concerns about the $1 billion campaign's impact on the neighborhood. It voiced opposition to the university's plan to build dormitories for 500 undergraduates on its Brighton campus, the former headquarters of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston.

Instead, it urged the college to house those students on the college's main Chestnut Hill campus and called for a 10-year moratorium on expansion to "safeguard Allston-Brighton's residential character." The panel asked city officials to deny the college a permit to convert a high-rise apartment complex near its campus on Commonwealth Avenue into a dormitory unless it accepted the conditions.

The letter also calls for:

• Not closing the current route of St. Thomas More Road regardless of whether or not a new spur road is constructed along the Evergreen Cemetery;
• No athletic field lights on the multipurpose field;
• No use of field lights for intramural use on the Brighton Campus (former St. John's Seminary land);
• Strictly limit the use of those fields (i.e., limit the hours from the proposed master plan);
• Not install artificial turf on those fields;
• Decrease the number of spaces on the parking garage adjacent to it, siting the parking instead along both sides of Commonwealth Avenue;
• Not use Foster Street for part of the shuttle bus route; and
  
• Conservation easements to protect open space along Lake Street and the orchard (which BC refers to as "buffer" space) to protect against future development.
  

UPDATE: The final Globe story is here.

Image of fabulous lettering by Caro Wallis provided through a Creative Commons license.